The Treasury Department will require Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase to make changes on how they will solicit and determine eligibility for borrowers in the Home Affordable Modification Program.
The Treasury conducts monthly Second Look reviews of all servicers participating in the program. If the review shows a higher than average percentage of modification decisions the Treasury disagrees with or that percentage does not decline over a period of time, it will require that servicer to make solicitation and eligibility changes.
A look at this chart (below), found buried in the August HAMP report, shows the Treasury disagrees with a higher than average number of decisions from JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo.
Bank of America is missing from the chart because, according to the Treasury, "other compliance activities were conducted in this time period that included the same processes evaluated during Second Look reviews."
But according to the Treasury, all three were asked to reevaluate loans not offered HAMP mods, submit further documentation, clarify the loan status, and make changes to the process. This includes training, policy clarification, or another action the Treasury mandates.
The three servicers (CitiMortgage was left out) have completed 189,621 permanent HAMP modifications since the program launched in March 2009. That's more than 40% of all 468,058 completed under the program.
Bank of America has offered 410,054 trials and completed 79,859 permanent mods. JPMorgan Chase offered 264,353 trials and completed 60,932 permanent mods. Wells Fargo has offered 255,986 trials and completed 48,830.
Together, the Treasury estimates these three servicers hold more than 724,000 mortgages that could be eligible for HAMP, more than 54% of the entire program.
Tom Goyda, a spokesman for Wells, told HousingWire that the Treasury reviewed 100 loans from each of its five servicing businesses for the above index, but it did not weigh them properly.
One of those divisions, for instance, serviced 84% of its loans but was weighed equally among the others, including one, which reported to the Treasury current loans that were already modified under HAMP and couldn't be solicited for further modification under the program.
A spokesman for JPMorgan Chase told HousingWire the changes were already made but could not disclose details.
Bank of America was not immediately available for comment.
Write toJon Prior.

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